They’re all linked. Arctic sea routes are open and Greenland is highly vulnerable to exploitation from China and Russia. The strategic necessity for America to control all of Greenland and its surrounding seas is vital to our national interests more than ever before. This effort for America to acquire Greenland is nothing new so President Trump is not just dreaming up a weird idea, he’s acting on an existing idea to meet our defense needs in the modern world. But we won’t be successful if we can’t defend ourselves and our allies in the maritime domain. The maritime strategy underpinning the new National Security Strategy is chokepoint-focused and the effort to increase our domestic shipbuilding must be successful in order for us to achieve peace through strength and deter our main adversary, communist China. The new Trump class battleship will give America a renewed capability to control chokepoints that we really don’t have today but the key to long-term success is increasing our sealift capabilities. We cannot successfully defend the Pacific without it. No jets fly without fuel delivered by sealift and no sexy missiles like the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile fly without those jets. Time is short as China has declared it will be ready for war in 2027. Pentagon press corps member Captain John Konrad is my guest today. He is the founder and CEO of gCaptain Maritime News and author of the book Fire On The Horizon. He is licensed to captain the world's largest ships and has sailed from ports around the world. John has built some of the world's most advanced ships and managed billion-dollar offshore construction projects in some of the world's harshest marine environments.

From weaponizationwatch.com: Dr. Ron Elfenbein is a Maryland emergency room physician who became a national voice during the COVID-19 pandemic, running multiple testing and monoclonal antibody treatment centers in partnership with the Maryland Department of Health and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He was recognized for his service with citations from the Maryland Governor, Maryland General Assembly, and the Maryland State Medical Society. Despite this record, he was indicted in April 2022 on healthcare fraud charges—an action that occurred before prosecutors had reviewed any patient charts. Dr. Elfenbein endured a three-week trial in 2023 and was initially convicted. Months later, Chief Judge James Bredar issued a 93-page opinion completely acquitting him, finding that “no reasonable jury” could have found guilt because the coding decisions at issue were legally permissible and supported by expert testimony. The judge also granted a new trial in the alternative, criticizing the government’s evidence as “atmospheric,” lacking factual and regulatory foundation. In 2025, the Fourth Circuit reversed the acquittal, placing Dr. Elfenbein back in jeopardy and facing a second trial. His counsel argues that the original prosecution was politically motivated—launched shortly after Dr. Elfenbein publicly criticized the Biden Administration’s decision to halt monoclonal antibody treatments. Letters from former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich describe Dr. Elfenbein as a man of integrity, a community pillar, and someone who was blindsided by an indictment that devastated his family, career, and finances. Dr. Elfenbein is now seeking intervention to end what he and his supporters call a clear case of lawfare—an unnecessary, unjust, and harmful continuation of a prosecution that the trial judge already found was legally unsupported.

And it seems North Carolina is at the center of that storm of activity in our country these days. The special operations forces that so professionally completed the Venezuela operation to capture its illegitimate and narco- terror cartel leader make their home there. The state continues to a focus on how disaster recovery operations need to improve after the lackluster performance in the Hurricane Helene response and recovery in the western part of the state. A pro-ISIS terrorist attack was prevented just before the New Year and now we find that the state has issued illegal commercial driver’s licenses at a very high rate. Coupled with recent anti-ICE protests and the discovery of potentially vast fraud operations and nationally highlighted violent crimes in the state, things aren’t slowing down. My guest today is Adam Smith, the founder and CEO of Savage Freedoms, a family man, a US Army Green Beret veteran, and he is running for Congress in North Carolina’s 11th District to address the issues the establishment politicians don’t have the stomach for.